In last place on our list, we have a southern shagbark, Booth, and two hicans, Bixby and Burlington. We have not been able to form an opinion of Booth. Bixby and Burlington have, so far, been very shy bearers and the nuts have not been well filled. They are of very large size and very excellent quality.
The time elapsed between the earliest and latest ripening of these different hickory varieties was 36 days. The time between the different steps were about three days. I do not give the dates because they will vary from year to year. In early years, Anthony has been ripe very early in September.
Summarizing this report shows that our tests so far indicate that the following varieties are good and well worthy of propagation: Anthony (probably No. 1), Weschcke, Bauer, Cedar Rapids, Fox, Clark, Wilcox, Minnie, Davis, Berger, Triplett, Bridgewater, Manahan (farther south). Instead of listing these 13 varieties alphabetically or in order of their merits, I have listed them in order of their ripening, earliest first, and so on. Those varieties in the first half of the list can be grown in locations considerably farther north than our location, which is 41° 45' North Latitude, while those in the last half of the list are not likely to be adapted to locations farther north than ours.
You will note that five of these varieties are not well known, but are good varieties. They are, namely; Bauer, Cedar Rapids, Clark, Triplett, and Bridgewater.[30]
[30] The Bridgewater pollenizes the male-sterile Weschcke variety in Wisconsin. See Mr. Weschcke's discussion, pp. 193-95 in NNGA Report for 1948.—Ed.
This is only a preliminary or progress report, and should not be taken as final in any respect. Neither does it cover all or near all, of the top-rate hickory varieties. For instance, you will note, the variety named Glover has not been mentioned. This is because our grafts of it have not started to bear yet, so we have no comparable basis for including it in this report. Yet there can be no question as to the merits of Glover, for it is one of the very best. There are, no doubt, many other very excellent varieties not mentioned here.
The hickory is the slowest growing, takes the longest to start to bear, is the nurseryman's headache (it taking about five years to grow stocks large enough to graft or bud, during which time they should have been transplanted at least twice to develop a better root system), they are about (the hardest of the nut species to transplant and their nuts are one of the smallest of the nut species only the filbert and the chestnut being as small). Yet because of their delicious flavor and other good qualities, hickories are probably the favorite nut of more people than any other of the nut species that can be grown in the northern part of this country.
(Applause.)
DR. MacDANIELS: I think we need more reports of that kind to get us oriented with our hickory varieties. I think when we get through with the walnut survey that the hickory nut survey would be next.
MR. CORSAN: Hickory was Dr. Charles S. Sargent's favorite tree, and he planted poison ivy under all of them, and it's there yet and they can't get rid of it. He wanted to keep the boys from gathering the nuts.